Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This communication is in response to applicants arguments filed on 04/08/2026, regarding application 18/559,640 filed on 11/08/2023. Claims 1-11 have been amended and are hereby entered. Claim 12 is cancelled. No claims are allowed.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments in light of amendments filed 4/08/2026, with respect to 35 USC 112b, are fully considered and are persuasive. The 112(b) rejection of claims 1-11 are withdrawn. Further, in light of applicant’s amendments the claims are no longer interpreted under 112(f).
Applicant's arguments in light of amendments filed 4/08/2026, with respect to 35 USC 101, regarding claim 6 (use claim) are fully considered and are persuasive. The 101 rejection of claim 6 regarding a “use claim” is withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments in light of amendments filed 4/08/2026, with respect to 35 USC 101, (abstract idea without practical application or significantly more), and 35 USC 103 are fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding 35 USC 101:
The applicant submits the claims recite practical application and significantly more by providing a service to a user based on stay purpose. However, this introduces a new abstract idea of certain methods of organizing human activity. Under broadest reasonable interpretation, providing a service to a user based on data relates to targeted advertising or marketing behaviors and sales activities, see MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(II).
Further, the other abstract ideas of mental processes and mathematical operations are still present. The independent claims recite processing data, making an estimation, and providing a service, which falls under collecting, analyzing, and presenting results of analysis (i.e. mental process), see MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III). Claims 4 and 11 clearly recite summation (i.e. mathematical operation), see MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(I). The introduction of computing components to process data, make estimations, and provide services amount to no more than an “apply it” recitation, (i.e. using the computer as a tool to perform the abstract ideas), see MPEP 2106.05(f). Therefore, the examiner respectfully disagrees with applicant arguments and the rejection is maintained.
Regarding 35 USC 103:
The Applicant’s amendments necessitate new prior art. The rejection now relies on a new combination of prior art rendering the applicant’s arguments moot.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-11 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claims contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. Claim 1 and 8 recite “identifying at least one activity to be performed by the user in the stay grid”. The specification lacks any description of identifying activities of users. However, the specification discusses identifying purpose based on use of buildings, see specification paragraph 84. For the purposes of compact prosecution, the claim is interpreted as “the stay purpose identifying the use of the building where the user is in the stay grid”. Claims 2-7 and 9-11 are rejected due to their dependency on independent claims 1 and 8.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) with no practical application and without significantly more.
The claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea in that the instant application is directed to a mental process (See MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III)). The independent claims (1 and 8) recite a method and systems to evaluate location data to make estimations based on the processed data. These claim elements are being interpreted as concepts performed in the human mind (including observation, evaluation, judgement, and opinion). Using location data to estimate a user’s stay purpose can equivalently be achieved by human observation and evaluation of the data. For example, a human can determine a person is likely eating at a restaurant if their location is at a restaurant. The claims recite an abstract idea consistent with the “mental process” grouping set forth in the MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(III).
Further, the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea in that the instant application is directed to certain methods of organizing human activity (See MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(II)). The independent claims recite a method and systems to provide a service to a user based on stay purpose. These claim elements are interpreted as commercial or legal interactions (including advertising, marketing, or sales activities or behaviors). Providing a service based on an estimation recites sales activities and targeted advertising consistent with the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping set forth in the MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(II).
The instant application fails to integrate the judicial exceptions into a practical application because the instant application merely recites an “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exceptions, or merely includes instructions to implement an abstract idea. The instant application is directed towards a method and systems to implement the identified abstract idea of receiving information, processing information, and displaying the result of the analysis (i.e. processing location data to estimate stay purpose) and commercial interactions (i.e. marketing advertising, or sales behaviors) in a general computer environment. The claims do not include additional elements that integrate the judicial exceptions into practical application or amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The claims recite the additional elements “a non-transitory computer readable medium” and “a processor”. These claim elements are recited at a high level of generality such that it amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a general computer environment. The machines merely act as a modality to implement the abstract idea and are not indicative of integration into a practical application (i.e., the additional elements are simply used as a tool to perform the abstract idea), see MPEP 2106.05(f).
Further claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed in Step 2A Prong Two analysis, the additional elements amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. The same analysis applies here in 2B and does not provide an inventive concept.
Regarding the dependent claims:
Claim 4-7 and 11 introduce the new abstract idea of Mathematical concepts, see MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)(I)). The recites “summing an area” of buildings. These claim elements are being interpreted as mathematical calculations including mathematical operation (summation) to determine a variable or number. Further, there is no practical application or significantly more as the mathematical calculations are used to make an estimation (the aforementioned mental process above). The application fails to integrate the judicial exception or significantly more because the instant application merely recites an “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or merely includes instructions to implement the abstract ideas. The general-purpose computing system with a processor executing software, merely acts as a modality to implement the abstract ideas and is not indicative of integration into a practical application, see MPEP 2106.05(f).
Claim 2-3 and 9-10, recite further embellishments of the existing abstract ideas and do not recite any new additional elements or new abstract ideas for consideration under 35 USC 101.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 4-8 and 11-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li (US 20210044930 A1) in view of Zhang (US 20200037102 A1) in further view of Ganesan (US 20210092218 A1).
Regarding Claim 1 and 8, Li teaches:
A stay purpose estimation device comprising: a non-transitory computer readable medium that stores one or more instructions, wherein the one or more instructions, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to: identify a stay location of a user; [see at least Li: (Para 0006) “the present disclosure proposes a method, an apparatus, a computer device and a storage medium for stay point recognition”, (Para 0034) “According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a computer device is proposed, and the computer device includes a memory, a processor and a computer program which is stored on the memory and runs on the processor, the processor, upon executing the program, implementing the above-mentioned method”, (Para 0050) “The general-purpose stay point may be determined based on a spatial location attribute.”]
estimate a stay purpose of the user based on one or more use-specific areas of one or more buildings included in the stay grid, [see at least Li: (Para 0049) “The general-purpose stay point may include a positioning point located in an Area of Interest (AOI) having a stay attribute. The AOI may be referred to as information area and refers to an area-shaped geographical entity in map data”, (Para 0050) “For example, the positioning point on Beijing-Xinjiang Freeway is usually a moving point, whereas the positioning point in the Summer Palace is usually a stay point, and the Summer Palace is a POI having the AOI. Therefore, the positioning point located in the AOI having a stay attribute may be determined as a stay point.”]
However, Li does not teach but Zhang does teach:
identify a grid of the stay location as a stay grid in a grid system that divides a target region into a plurality of grids; [see at least Zhang: (Para 0004) “Gridding is a way of dividing two-dimensional geo-space, and each grid covers a certain geographical area. The geo-fence may be approximated as a grid set”, (Para 0006) “In one aspect, a method for determining index grids of a geo-fence, includes: determining a circumscribed grid of the geo-fence, wherein the circumscribed grid is a smallest single grid in a pre-defined granularity system that can contain the geo-fence”]
Further, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine stay estimation (Li) with applying a grid to an area (Zhang). One of ordinary skill would have recognized using geofencing and gridding would be effective in a location-based system. See at least Zhang paragraph 3, “With the popularity of mobile Internet services and applications such as Online Map, O2O (Online To Offline), more and more user location data is collected and stored. Geo-fence-based services, such as marketing push and security alert, are the most direct, most real-time and most effective explorations and use of user location data, and have broad application prospects”. Therefore, using geofencing and gridding would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art.
However, the combination of Li and Zhang does not teach but Ganesan does teach:
the stay purpose identifying at least one activity to be performed by the user in the stay grid; and provide one or more services to a device of the user based on the stay purpose. [see 112(a) rejection for interpretation of the limitation; see at least Ganesan: (Para 0034) “They point in the direction of the restaurant from their current location, creating “vector A” that intersects with the restaurant. They then move 20 or 30 yards down the sidewalk and again point at the restaurant creating “vector B” that also intersects with the restaurant”, (Para 0045) “For example, we have a user who is creating point POIs within the boundary of an existing polygon POI, a grocery store. The name of the grocery store is known, Gil's Grocery for example, so each newly created POI would be appended with the name of the grocery store; “Gil's Grocery” to preface the user added name of the created POIs. Gil's Grocery Bakery Department, Gil's Grocery Butcher Counter and so on. Additionally, the building could be highlighted on a map for confirmation. The user could then confirm and, if so desired, add photos, description, reviews etc.”
Further, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the estimation system (Li and Zhang) with providing services for users at locations (Ganesan). One of ordinary skill would have recognized the benefits of using location, gridding, and geofencing in combination with marketing, services, or actions for users at the locations. See at least Zhang paragraph 3, “With the popularity of mobile Internet services and applications such as Online Map, O2O (Online To Offline), more and more user location data is collected and stored. Geo-fence-based services, such as marketing push and security alert, are the most direct, most real-time and most effective explorations and use of user location data, and have broad application prospects”. Therefore use of marketing, services or actions in a location based estimation system would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Regarding Claim 4, the combination of Li, Zhang, and Ganesan teach the limitations of claim 1. Li further teaches:
wherein the processor, when estimating the stay purpose, is configured to: identify at least one use of the one or more buildings included in the stay grid; and [see at least Li: (Para 0049) “The general-purpose stay point may include a positioning point located in an Area of Interest (AOI) having a stay attribute. The AOI may be referred to as information area and refers to an area-shaped geographical entity in map data.” (Para 0053) “For a well-known POI such as the abovementioned Summer Palace, its AOI may be easily obtained. The AOIs of some smaller POIs or POIs which are not well known might be obtained by virtue of specific means. For example, regarding the POI ***scientific and technological park with 5,000 staff members, if it is found after analysis of historical data that many users access the WiFi corresponding to the ***scientific and technological park every day, the AOI of the ***scientific and technological park may be determined according to these users' positioning locations.”]
However, Li does not teach but Zhang does teach:
based on the use-specific areas obtained by summing an area of ones of the one or more building with each of the at least one use [see at least Zhang: (Para 0021) “SF is the area of the geo-fence; SI is a sum of areas of all the index grids”, (Para 0078) “With a geographical area including fences such as office buildings, residential areas, shopping malls, airports, hospitals, etc. as an object”,]
Further, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine stay estimation (Li) with applying a grid areas and summation (Zhang). One of ordinary skill would have recognized using geofencing and gridding would be effective in a location-based system. See at least Zhang paragraph 3, “With the popularity of mobile Internet services and applications such as Online Map, O2O (Online To Offline), more and more user location data is collected and stored. Geo-fence-based services, such as marketing push and security alert, are the most direct, most real-time and most effective explorations and use of user location data, and have broad application prospects”. Therefore, using geofencing, gridding techniques in a location based system would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art.
However, the combination of Li and Zhang do not teach but Ganesan does teach:
determine, … , a specific use with a largest area among the use-specific areas [The limitation recites determining a “specific use” of an area in which the area (the building) is the largest in the area; see at least Ganesan: (Para 0047) “Alternatively, a point POI may be generated by determining the position of the mobile device, such as with GPS, and if that POI is determined to be within the boundaries of a geolocated area or polygon, such as the known footprint of a building, then the system may automatically add those attributes (address, geolocated area, name, boundaries of building, etc.) to the new POI or alternatively query the user of the system if they would like to add some or all of these attributes to the new POI.”]
Further, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the estimation system (Li and Zhang) with determining specific use of areas (Ganesan). One of ordinary skill would have recognized the benefits of using location, gridding, and geofencing in combination with specific use or purpose for accurate location and use information. See at least Ganesan paragraph 29, “Given the inherent inaccuracies of both positioning systems such as GPS and heading sensors such as flux gate compasses this mode of operation of the system is intended to rapidly enable a user of the system to more efficiently determine the position of a new POI”. See at least Li Para 36 “The technical solution may be applied to various situations, to improve the recall rate and accuracy of stay point recognition”. Therefore, it would have been obvious to incorporate specific use or purpose of areas in an accurate location-based system, yielding predictable results to one of ordinary skill.
Regarding Claim 5, the combination of Li, Zhang and Ganesan teach the limitations of claim 4. Li further teaches:
wherein when a specific building exists in the stay grid and other grids, an area of the specific building used to determine the use-specific areas is a gross floor area of the specific building or a gross floor area division value allocated to the stay grid among gross floor area division values [The limitation recites a building existing and the area of a building being the entire grid (“gross floor area”) or part of the grid (“gross floor area division value”). There is no positively recited step and instead the claim recites intended use or results that does not carry patentable weight.
However, Li does not teach but Zhang does teach:
wherein the gross floor area division values is allocated to each of grids, among the plurality of grids of the grid system, in which the specific building exists based on allocating the gross floor area of the specific building according to a proportion in which the specific building exists in the each of the grids in which the specific building exists. [The limitation recites the intended results of the allocation of a “gross floor area division value” to grids in which buildings exist in proportion to other areas. However, art is still provided; see at least Zhang: (Equation 2) “P =SO/SI”, (Para 0021) “In Equations 1 and 2, SO is a sum of areas of the portions of all index grids that overlap with the geo-fence… SI is a sum of areas of all the index grids”, (Para 0078) “With a geographical area including fences such as office buildings, residential areas, shopping malls, airports, hospitals, etc. as an object”,]
Further, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine stay estimation (Li) with applying a grid techniques (Zhang). One of ordinary skill would have recognized using geofencing and gridding would be effective in a location-based system. See at least Zhang paragraph 3, “With the popularity of mobile Internet services and applications such as Online Map, O2O (Online To Offline), more and more user location data is collected and stored. Geo-fence-based services, such as marketing push and security alert, are the most direct, most real-time and most effective explorations and use of user location data, and have broad application prospects”. Therefore, using geofencing, gridding techniques in a location-based system would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Regarding Claim 6, the combination of Li, Zhang, and Ganesan teach the limitations of claim 5. While Li and Zhang teach a gridded estimation system, they do not explicitly teach but Ganesan does teach:
wherein the processor is configured to determine the use-specific areas based on at least one of the gross floor area or the gross floor area division values of the specific building based on the use of the specific building, [The limitation recites determining “use-specific areas” based on various values such as “gross floor area” or “gross floor area division values” which are related to building use; see at least Ganesan: (Para 0047) “Alternatively, a point POI may be generated by determining the position of the mobile device, such as with GPS, and if that POI is determined to be within the boundaries of a geolocated area or polygon, such as the known footprint of a building, then the system may automatically add those attributes (address, geolocated area, name, boundaries of building, etc.) to the new POI or alternatively query the user of the system if they would like to add some or all of these attributes to the new POI. The information regarding the geolocated area and its related attributes may be available from multiple sources.”]
Further, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the estimation system (Li and Zhang) with determining specific use of areas (Ganesan). One of ordinary skill would have recognized the benefits of using location, gridding, and geofencing in combination with specific use or purpose for accurate location and use information. See at least Ganesan paragraph 29, “Given the inherent inaccuracies of both positioning systems such as GPS and heading sensors such as flux gate compasses this mode of operation of the system is intended to rapidly enable a user of the system to more efficiently determine the position of a new POI”. See at least Li Para 36 “The technical solution may be applied to various situations, to improve the recall rate and accuracy of stay point recognition”. Therefore, it would have been obvious to incorporate specific use or purpose of areas in an accurate location-based system, yielding predictable results to one of ordinary skill.
Regarding Claim 7, the combination of Li, Zhang and Ganesan teach the limitations of claim 4. Li further teaches:
wherein the processor is configured to estimate the user's stay purpose based on … a stay start time and stay duration at the stay location. [see at least Li: (Para 0019) “if the to-be-recognized positioning point is located in an area of interest where a selected general-purpose stay point lies, determining that the to-be-recognized positioning point is the stay point.” (Para 0052), “In addition, the obtained historical positioning points for a user may refer to obtained historical positioning points of respective users within the latest predetermined time period.”]
While Li and Zhang teach a gridded location-based estimation device, they do not explicitly teach but Ganesan does teach:
the specific use with the largest area of the stay grid and [see claim 4 for interpretation of “specific use with the largest area”; see at least Ganesan: (Para 0047) “Alternatively, a point POI may be generated by determining the position of the mobile device, such as with GPS, and if that POI is determined to be within the boundaries of a geolocated area or polygon, such as the known footprint of a building, then the system may automatically add those attributes (address, geolocated area, name, boundaries of building, etc.) to the new POI or alternatively query the user of the system if they would like to add some or all of these attributes to the new POI.”]
Further, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the estimation system (Li and Zhang) with determining specific use of areas (Ganesan). One of ordinary skill would have recognized the benefits of using location, gridding, and geofencing in combination with specific use or purpose for accurate location and use information. See at least Ganesan paragraph 29, “Given the inherent inaccuracies of both positioning systems such as GPS and heading sensors such as flux gate compasses this mode of operation of the system is intended to rapidly enable a user of the system to more efficiently determine the position of a new POI”. See at least Li Para 36 “The technical solution may be applied to various situations, to improve the recall rate and accuracy of stay point recognition”. Therefore, it would have been obvious to incorporate specific use or purpose of areas in an accurate location-based system, yielding predictable results to one of ordinary skill.
Regarding Claim 11, the combination of Li, Zhang, and Ganesan teach the limitations of claim 8. Li further teaches:
wherein the estimating further comprises: identifying at least one use of the one or more buildings included in the stay grid; [see at least Li: (Para 0049) “The general-purpose stay point may include a positioning point located in an Area of Interest (AOI) having a stay attribute. The AOI may be referred to as information area and refers to an area-shaped geographical entity in map data.” (Para 0053) “For a well-known POI such as the abovementioned Summer Palace, its AOI may be easily obtained. The AOIs of some smaller POIs or POIs which are not well known might be obtained by virtue of specific means. For example, regarding the POI ***scientific and technological park with 5,000 staff members, if it is found after analysis of historical data that many users access the WiFi corresponding to the ***scientific and technological park every day, the AOI of the ***scientific and technological park may be determined according to these users' positioning locations.”]
estimating the user's stay purpose based on … a stay start time and stay duration at the stay location. [see at least Li: (Para 0019) “if the to-be-recognized positioning point is located in an area of interest where a selected general-purpose stay point lies, determining that the to-be-recognized positioning point is the stay point.” (Para 0052), “In addition, the obtained historical positioning points for a user may refer to obtained historical positioning points of respective users within the latest predetermined time period.”]
However, Li does not teach but Zhang does teach:
based on the use-specific areas obtained by summing an area of ones of the one or more building with each of the at least one use [see at least Zhang: (Para 0021) “SF is the area of the geo-fence; SI is a sum of areas of all the index grids”, (Para 0078) “With a geographical area including fences such as office buildings, residential areas, shopping malls, airports, hospitals, etc. as an object”,]
Further, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine stay estimation (Li) with applying a grid areas and summation (Zhang). One of ordinary skill would have recognized using geofencing and gridding would be effective in a location-based system. See at least Zhang paragraph 3, “With the popularity of mobile Internet services and applications such as Online Map, O2O (Online To Offline), more and more user location data is collected and stored. Geo-fence-based services, such as marketing push and security alert, are the most direct, most real-time and most effective explorations and use of user location data, and have broad application prospects”. Therefore, using geofencing, gridding techniques in a location based system would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art.
However, the combination of Li and Zhang do not teach, but Ganesan does teach:
determining,…, a specific use with a largest area among the use-specific area ,and [The limitation recites determining a “specific use” of an area in which the area (the building) is the largest in the area; see at least Ganesan: (Para 0047) “Alternatively, a point POI may be generated by determining the position of the mobile device, such as with GPS, and if that POI is determined to be within the boundaries of a geolocated area or polygon, such as the known footprint of a building, then the system may automatically add those attributes (address, geolocated area, name, boundaries of building, etc.) to the new POI or alternatively query the user of the system if they would like to add some or all of these attributes to the new POI.”]
the specific use with the largest area, and [see at least Ganesan: (Para 0047) “Alternatively, a point POI may be generated by determining the position of the mobile device, such as with GPS, and if that POI is determined to be within the boundaries of a geolocated area or polygon, such as the known footprint of a building, then the system may automatically add those attributes (address, geolocated area, name, boundaries of building, etc.) to the new POI or alternatively query the user of the system if they would like to add some or all of these attributes to the new POI.”]
Further, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the estimation system (Li and Zhang) with determining specific use of areas (Ganesan). One of ordinary skill would have recognized the benefits of using location, gridding, and geofencing in combination with specific use or purpose for accurate location and use information. See at least Ganesan paragraph 29, “Given the inherent inaccuracies of both positioning systems such as GPS and heading sensors such as flux gate compasses this mode of operation of the system is intended to rapidly enable a user of the system to more efficiently determine the position of a new POI”. See at least Li Para 36 “The technical solution may be applied to various situations, to improve the recall rate and accuracy of stay point recognition”. Therefore, it would have been obvious to incorporate specific use or purpose of areas in an accurate location-based system, yielding predictable results to one of ordinary skill.
Claims 2-3 and 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li (US 20210044930 A1) in view of Zhang (US 20200037102 A1) in view of Ganesan (US 20210092218 A1) in further view of You (US 20200271787 A1).
Regarding Claim 2 and 9, the combination of Li, Zhang and Ganesan teach the limitations of claim 1. Li further teaches:
and identify, as the stay grid, one of the plurality of grids to which a latitude and a longitude of the stay location belongs in [see at least Li: (Para 0052) “Each of the obtained historical positioning points may include information such as a user's identification, a positioning time, a positioning location (may be in the form of latitude and longitude)”]
While Li teaches latitude and longitude of stay location, it does not explicitly teach a grid. However, Zhang teaches:
wherein the processor, when identifying the grid of the stay location as the stay grid, is configured to: specify a resolution of the grid system [see at least Zhang: (Figure 5 and 6)]
the grid system having the specified resolution [see at least Zhang: (Figure 5 and 6)]
Further, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine stay estimation (Li) with applying gridding techniques (Zhang). One of ordinary skill would have recognized using geofencing and gridding would be effective in a location-based system. See at least Zhang paragraph 3, “With the popularity of mobile Internet services and applications such as Online Map, O2O (Online To Offline), more and more user location data is collected and stored. Geo-fence-based services, such as marketing push and security alert, are the most direct, most real-time and most effective explorations and use of user location data, and have broad application prospects”. Therefore, using geofencing, gridding techniques in a location-based system would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art.
While the combination of Li, Zhang and Ganesan teach a stay location grid with a resolution, it does not explicitly teach error ranges. However, You teaches:
based on an error range of location information used to identify the stay location; [see at least You: (Para 0042) “An environment map can be divided into a number of different locations using grid cells. Each grid cell can be used to identify a location in the environment map”, (Para 0043) “The occupation probability module 506 may be configured to calculate an occupation probability for the grid cells in an environment map using error ranges for transformation points contained within the grid cells.”]
Further, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of a grided stay location (Li, Zhang, and Ganesan) with the use of error ranges (You). One of ordinary skill would have recognized error ranges would be important in ensuring accuracy estimations. Adjusting resolution in accordance with error ranges would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, yielding predictable results.
Regarding Claim 3 and 10, the combination of Li, Zhang, Ganesan, and You teach the limitations of claim 2. While Li teaches a stay location it does not explicitly teach a grid resolution. However, Zhang teaches:
wherein the resolution of the grid system is decreased as the error range of the location information is increased. [The limitation recites intended use or results and does not carry patentable weight. However, art is still provided; see at least Zhang: (Para 0048) “Since the index accuracy of the grid set depends on the granularity of the grids containing the boundary of the geo-fence in the set, it is allowed that the grids within the geo-fence have a larger granularity, so as to reduce the number of index grids while meeting the precision requirement.”]
Further, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine stay estimation (Li) with applying gridding techniques (Zhang). One of ordinary skill would have recognized using geofencing and gridding would be effective in a location-based system. See at least Zhang paragraph 3, “With the popularity of mobile Internet services and applications such as Online Map, O2O (Online To Offline), more and more user location data is collected and stored. Geo-fence-based services, such as marketing push and security alert, are the most direct, most real-time and most effective explorations and use of user location data, and have broad application prospects”. Therefore, using geofencing, gridding techniques in a location-based system would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Examiner Benjamin Truong, whose telephone number is 703-756-5883. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 9 am to 5 pm (EST).
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nathan Uber SPE can be reached on 571-270-3923. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300 Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/B.L.T. /Examiner, Art Unit 3687
/NATHAN C UBER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3626
Prosecution Insights